Research and teaching areas

Robin de Bruin lectures Modern European History at the European Studies Department of the University of Amsterdam. He has published on European integration history, Europeanisation and domestic change, decolonisation and European integration, the history of technocratic governance, and Nazi rule in Europe. In the (recent) past, he taught courses on the history of political parties, perpetrators of the Holocaust, extra parliamentary political movements in the 1960s and 1970s, “World History” and historiography. He currently teaches courses about European integration history, democracy in the European Union, “mental maps” of modern Europe, and (anti-)statism. His fields of interest are:

the history of politics: the transformation of the European idea, conservative Europeanism, (neo-)imperialism and European integration, romantic internationalism, (neo)corporatism, technocratic ideology.

cultural history: work ethic in Europe in the 19th and 20th century, cultural "nationalism", the biography as a historical genre.

Elastisch Europa. De integratie van Europa en de Nederlandse politiek, 1947-1968, Amsterdam, Wereldbibliotheek, 2014, 327 pp. [Reviewed by Caroline de Gruyter, “Alles om Europa niet in de marge te laten verdwijnen,” NRC Handelsblad 9 May 2014; Wim van Meurs, “Drie studies over Nederland en de Europese integratie,” in Carla van Baalen et al. (eds.), Het geld regeert. Jaarboek Parlementaire Geschiedenis 2014, Amsterdam, Boom, 2014, pp. 195-197; “Vovo”, “Boekrecensie – Elastisch Europa. De integratie van Europa en de Nederlandse politiek, 1947-1968 van Robin de Bruin,” http://www.pa-academie.nl/boekrecensie-elastisch-europa-robin-de-bruin/ (21 September 2015); Vincent Lagendijk, “Robin de Bruin, Elastisch Europa: de integratie van Europa en de Nederlandse politiek,” Journal of European Integration History, Vol. 22, 2016, 1, pp. 187-189; Marnix Beyen, “Robin de Bruin, Elastisch Europa. De integratie van Europa en de Nederlandse politiek, 1947-1968,” BMGN – The Low Countries Historical Review, Vol. 133, 2018, https://www.bmgn-lchr.nl/articles/10640/.] Elastic Europe takes issue with the dominant "realist" and "neo-realist" views in Dutch historiography, in which European integration is considered as a specific form of foreign policy, in which a major role is attributed to national interests in the process of integration and which devalues the role of ideas and ideals in the integration process. The Dutch national interest certainly played a dominant role in the discourse of civil servants and ministers on the question of European integration, but within the political parties ideological arguments were emphasised.

Publications: articles, book reviews - professional (selection)

"Alt-Right claims that would put the Soviets to shame. The alleged conspiracies of conservative reformers like count Coudenhove-Kalergi and the Bilderberg Group," EuroVisie. A Publication of the Study Association for European Studies, Vol. 13, 2017/2018, 2, pp. 28-31. [journal article, professional]

"The Elastic Europe: the historical backgrounds of European multilateralism," invited keynote lecture Do we need international organisations? Current threats and challenges to multilateralism, with Robin de Bruin, Stefanie Schmahl & Loukas Tsoukalis, Council of Europe, Strasbourg 7 & 8 June 2018.

"Dutch high official Hans Max Hirschfeld (1899-1961) and the convenient marriage between colonialism and Saint-Simonian technocracy," Government by Expertise: Technocrats and Technocracy in Western Europe, 1914-1973. International conference of the Amsterdam Centre for Contemporary European Studies (ACCESS Europe) in cooperation with the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam 13-15 September 2017 (conveners Camilo Erlichman & Peter Romijn).

"The creation of the European Common Market, the "Eurafrican relaunch" and the development of Dutch West New Guinea, 1956-1962," Origins, implementation and funding of European policies from the Schuman Plan to Maastricht. International conference of the European Union Liaison Committee of Historians in cooperation with the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon 8 May 2017 (organisation Alice Cunha).

"Dutch politicians and the growing sense of European decline in an ever closer and more connected world, ca. 1945-1965," From Empires to Empire? European Integration in Global Context, 1950s to 1990s, Freie Universität Berlin 7-9 April 2016 (organisation Wolfram Kaiser & Kiran Patel).

Mediator and example. The Netherlands’ self-perceived role as a guide country in postwar Western Europe," Recasting the History of Dutch Foreign Relations, 1814-2000, University of Amsterdam 17 March 2016 (organisation Ruud van Dijk, Samuël Kruizinga, Vincent Kuitenbrouwer & Rimko van der Maar).

"Mediator and example. The Low Countries’ self-perceived role as a guide country in postwar Western Europe" (panel about "Mobilizing Culture after War in Twentieth-Century Europe"), Council for European Studies: Contradictions: Envisioning European Futures, Sciences Po, Paris 8-10 July 2015.

"Postwar Ideological Convergence in Dutch Politics as a Form of Europeanization" (panel about "European integration as a cause for consensus or conflict in domestic politics, 1950-2010"), Council for European Studies: Crisis and Contingency: States of (In)stability, Amsterdam, June 25-27, 2013.

"Salazar’s Estado Novo as an Example for Socio-Economic and Political "Renewal" in the Netherlands, 1933-1941," Crisis and Mobilization since 1789. Second Conference of the International Scholars’ Network History of Societies and Socialisms (Hosas), International Institute of Social History Amsterdam 22-24 February 2013.

""Europe" as a Hothouse for Dutch Domestic Politics, 1946-1968," European Political Cultures and Parties and the European Integration Process, 1945-1992, IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca / University of Padua 10-12 November 2011.

"Dutch Politics in the 1950s and the Myth of Inevitable Europeanization," Globalization, Europeanization and Other Transnational Phenomena, Budapest College of Communication and Business 6-7 May 2011.

"Projector or Projection Screen? The Portuguese Estado Novo as an Example for Ideas on "Renewal" in the Netherlands, 1933-1946," European Encounters. Intellectual Exchange and the Rethinking of Europe (1918-1945), University of Amsterdam 27 & 28 January 2011.

"Transfer of Corporatism? Corporatism and "Renewal" in the Netherlands, 1939-1946," European Social Science and History Conference 2010, Ghent 13-17 April 2010.

"Ideas of Europe in the Dutch Protestant Antirevolutionaire Partij and the Dutch Labour Party during the late 1940s and 1950s," European Identity and the Second World War, University of Amsterdam 10-11 December 2007.

"Europe and the Recovery of Justice: Post-War Dutch Political Visions," European Social Science and History Conference 2006, Amsterdam 22-25 March 2006.

Bruin, R.J. de (2018, June 14). Eurafrique/Eurafrica. The EU’s Contested Neighbourhoods. Summer School of the University of Amsterdam’s Research School for Regional, Transnational & European Studies (ARTES), co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, Amsterdam 14-15 June 2018.

Bruin, R.J. de (2018, April 7). De EU als Unidentified Political Object. Nederlands verleden, Europese toekomst?: lezing en debat over de toekomst van de Europese Unie. Borders of knowledge, identity and power, fourth edition of the conference A Struggle for Peace, Academiegebouw Utrecht, Dutch United Nations Students Association (SIB).

2018

2017

de Bruin, R. (2017). Alt-right Claims that would put the Soviets to shame: The alleged conspiracies of conservative reformers like count Coudenhove-Kalergi and the Bilderberg Group. EuroVisie, 13(2), 28-31. [details]

2017

de Bruin, R. J. (2017). The creation of the European Common Market, the "Eurafrican relaunch" and the development of Dutch West New Guinea, 1956-1962. Paper presented at Origins, implementation and funding of European policies from the Schuman Plan to Maastricht, Lisbon, Portugal.